The second volume of Mordecai Shehori’s Liszt series bears
the subtitle ‘On Nature’s Beauty and Man’s
Torment’. I wonder if Shehori has derived the phrase from
the writings of Chaim Nachman Bialik, the eminent poet whose
writing is still hugely admired in Shehori’s native Israel.
Irrespective of this, its suggestive and poetic power dominates
the programme that Shehori has constructed.

There is the subtly shaded, dynamics-conscious performance of
the Impromptu in F sharp minor with which to start. Its
narrative urgency, frequently relinquished and then reasserted,
proves malleable in Shehori’s hands - his crystalline
trills equally so. The recorded sound throughout this undated
- but I presume 2011 recital - is quite close. This in no way
limits admiration for Au Bord d’une source, which
proves even more archivally intriguing given that he plays the
extended ending composed in 1863 for Liszt’s pupil Giovanni
Sgambati.

If, when one thinks of Vallée d’Obermann
one thinks, on disc, of Horowitz or Lazar Berman, I think you
would find that Shehori’s aesthetic alignment is more
the former than the later. There’s a tauter, kinetic quality
to his reading, though this is no simulacrum; Shehori is neither
as fatalistic nor as detonatory. Instead he builds wisely, and
incrementally, yielding great tonal colour, warm lyricism and
passionate declamation. Similarly Shehori veers away from the
kind of galvanic model posited by Cziffra in Les jeux d’eau
á la Villa d’Este and doesn’t replicate
the kind of tonal extremes cultivated by Cziffra either - less
drive and less dapple therefore.

We hear a really lovely performance of Canzone ‘Nessùn
maggior dolore after Rossini’s opera Otello with gaunt
bass and huge technical facility to the fore. The demands of
Funérailles are met with adroit technical and
expressive assurance. The melancholy and infernal elements are
delineated very sagely but without awkward tempo adjustments;
there’s a real sense of spatial narrative throughout.
His digital precision too, and astute pedalling (never over
pedalling) are laudable too. He takes on the Petrarch Sonnets
perceptively. The ‘swinging’ rhythm of No.47, and
the perfectly realised tempos of Nos.104 and 123 attest to Shehori’s
natural sounding affinity for the composer. Appropriately there
is a vibrant and vital Faust Waltz to finish, replete
with acres of legerdemain.

This finely argued disc whets the appetite for volume 3. My
only small reservation is the rather chilly acoustic, but there’s
certainly no arguing with this calibre of musicianship.

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